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368 Int. J. Nanotechnol., Vol. 9, Nos. 3–7, 2012
Copyright © 2012 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.
Low-dimensional materials for thermoelectric applications
Pascal Boulet Laboratoire Chimie Provence – UMR CNRS 6264, Université de Provence, Aix-Marseille I, II et III, Avenue Normandie Niemen, 13397 Marseille, Cedex 20, France E-mail: [email protected]
Marie-Christine Record* Institut Matériaux Microélectronique Nanosciences de Provence IM2NP – UMR CNRS 6242, Université Aix-Marseille III – Paul Cézanne, Avenue Normandie Niemen, 13397 Marseille Cedex 20, France E-mail: [email protected] *Corresponding author
Abstract: In recent years, increasing awareness and concern for energy resources and the environment have stimulated significant advances in materials and technologies for energy conversion. By using a principle called ‘the Seebeck effect’ thermoelectric modules can convert heat energy to electricity. The efficiency of a thermoelectric material is given by the figure of merit ZT = (S2σ/κ)T, where S is the Seebeck coefficient, T is the temperature, and σ and κ are the electrical and thermal conductivities, respectively. An improvement in ZT can be achieved by increasing S2σ or reducing κ. However, in three-dimensional (3D) materials, S, σ and κ are interrelated. By contrast, when dimensionality of materials is lowered down to the nanometre scale, these parameters can be tuned to some extent independently from one another to some extent. This paper reports on some examples of low-dimensional thermoelectric materials with enhanced properties. Various calculation methods used to predict these properties are also presented, and the added value of the calculations as a complement to experiments in the improvement of thermoelectric materials is particularly stressed.
Keywords: thermoelectricity; nanomaterials; quantum wells; quantum wires; quantum dots; confinement effects; calculations; density-functional theory.
Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Boulet, P. and Record, M-C. (2012) ‘Low-dimensional materials for thermoelectric applications’, Int. J. Nanotechnol., Vol. 9, Nos. 3–7, pp.368–376.
Biographical notes: Pascal Boulet earned his PhD from both the University of Lyon (France) and the University of Geneva (Switzerland) in 2001 under the supervision of Pr. H. Chermette and Pr. J. Weber. His PhD thesis was related to the Density-Functional Theory calculations of catalytic processes on vanadium
